Re: Ashcroft seems to have a passion for punishment, letter, Sept. 29.
The letter writer indicates prison time should be shortened with less restraints. He claims that the populations of prisons are disproportionately black and Hispanic.
I would like to answer that with an encounter my younger brother had when he was a motorcycle cop in a city in Connecticut. He was called in by his captain and commissioner of police. They stated that 90 percent of his speeding tickets were issued to blacks and Hispanics and could he account for this policy. He said, yes. Then they asked what was his reason. He answered, because they were the ones exceeding the speed limit.
They told him he had to reduce that percentage. The following month they called him in again and asked why he had not written one single ticket. He answered "either I enforce the law or I don't; which do you want me to do?"
